My kid started playing travel at 8u.
The years from 11u to 14u were not filled with winning teams. Great instruction but not powerhouse teams. More losing than winning.
15u and 16u were much better in terms of being on teams that could compete. It's a world of difference...playing where you know you are going to lose versus knowing that you can compete most of the time and win often.
Nothing worse than going into a game where losing by less than 5 is a victory of sorts. It's a terrible experience to be like that in most of your games.
Why anyone would want to do that in the last 4 years they will be playing baseball is beyond me.